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2021 Tuscaloosa-Alpine Hills Tornado (TornadoMaster)
Introduction The 2021 Tuscaloosa-Alpine Hills Tornado was a violent tornado that struck the area on April 28, 2021. It was part of a much larger outbreak of severe weather and tornadoes that affected Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. The tornado Outbreak left a path of destruction in its wake. Tornado Track The first tornado warning for this storm was issued at 5:45 PM on April 28, 2019. This storm had already formed a strong hook echo on radar. The tornado first touched down at 6:03 PM EDT, near the Tuscaloosa Airport. The tornado started out as a rope tornado, before moving into a well defined stovepipe tornado. Many storm chasers recall that in this stage of the tornado it was very picturesque. A tornado emergency was issued at 6:13 PM. The tornado moved into Tuscaloosa as a mid range EF3 tornado, doing considerable damage. The tornado was up to 0.5 miles wide at this point. As the tornado continued to travel more into Tuscaloosa, it intensified into a mid range EF4 that was a mile wide. The tornado continued to track southeast into Alpine Hills part of town, as a 1.75 mile wide EF5. Many well built homes were swept cleanly off of their foundations, causing many casualties. The tornado continued southeast out of Alpine Hills into more rural parts of the area. There was a subdivision with newer homes that was destroyed at EF4 intensity. There were some casualties. The tornado then continued over forests, hitting one home at EF3 intensity. The tornado left a trail of complete destruction in its path. Impact After the tornado lifted, first responders were horrified at the damage they saw. The tornado was given a preliminary rating of high end EF4 but was changed within the day to EF5. After the tornado lifted out of Tuscaloosa, news teams were covering the story much like any other tornado aftermath. Soon after the tornado, it was decided to build a monument to remember all of the tornado victims from 2011 and 2021. The majority of the damage that occurred was minor, but in the center of the path, it was catastrophic. The worst part of the damage occurred in Alpine Hills, where the tornado had winds recorded at 225 MPH and was 1.75 miles wide. Numerous homes were destroyed. Many of the casualties also occured in Alpine Hills. Below are some pictures of the horrifying damage from the tornado. Numerous homes were destroyed in this tornado, as many as 2,000 homes were destroyed, with another 3,000 damaged. The total damage cost came out to reach over 2 billion dollars. Media Since this tornado was part of a much larger outbreak, this tornado was covered by many television stations giving out warnings to people. The first warnings for this storm went out at 6:54 PM, giving people within the first touchdown of the tornado nine minutes of lead time. As the tornado was on the ground, there was a large network of storm chasers giving live feed to many TV networks. As the live feed came in, many meteorologists warned that this was at least an EF4 tornado. After the tornado had moved into Alpine Hills, there were people reporting damage of cleanly swept slabs, and a picture came on of damage with the tornado in the background, so more people decided to heed the warning. After the tornad, many stories came out saying how they decided to heed the warnings only because they had seen images of the damage. There was also a tornado emergency that had been issued earlier at 6:21 PM due to confirmation that there was a tornado in progress and a large debris ball on the radar signature. Due to the significant amount of warnings and images of the tornado, there were only 27 deaths associated with this tornado which is considerably low because of the extent of the damage. Category:Tornadoes Category:Deadly Tornadoes Category:Violent Tornadoes Category:Costly Tornadoes Category:Catastrophic Tornadoes Category:Tornadoes of 2021 Category:TornadoMaster Category:Long Track Tornadoes